SeArc Ecological Marine Consulting’s Ido Sella, top right, watches as a crew of port contractors pulls sample tiles of ECOncrete from the GPA container docks on the Savannah river after a six-month soak.

Last February, Georgia Ports Authority installed new concrete panels at its Garden City Terminal docks to try to provide a better foothold for aquatic plants and animals.

The panels, made of ECOncrete, differ from regular concrete in that their surfaces are honeycombed and pH neutral, which developers hoped would allow clinging marine life to latch on. Both factors attract filter feeders, which clean the water and form the foundation for a broader food chain.

GPA executive director Curtis Foltz, who also serves on the board of the Savannah Ocean Exchange, first learned of ECOncrete when it was a finalist for the $100,000 Gulfstream Navigator Award at last year’s Ocean Exchange.

“If the tests are successful, this building material could help Georgia’s port infrastructure serve as an incubator for marine life,” he said when Israeli scientists Shimrit Finkel and Ido Sella of SeArc Ecological Marine Consulting suspended a series of 30 panels featuring different chemical formulations and surface textures from docks at the container port.

Foltz said he was impressed with the early test results.

After being suspended for six months off the dock face, the ECOncrete tiles were temporarily hoisted to reveal surfaces alive with plants and tiny animals.

Typically, only barnacles thrive on the regular concrete used in marine construction. However, ECOncrete proved more hospitable to a broader range of aquatic animals, hosting various corals, mussels, oysters and hydrozoans, which are related to sea anemones and jellyfish.

“These invertebrates are at the center of a food web, helping to establish an enriched environment and improved fish habitat,” said GPA environmental sustainability manager Natalie Schanze.

“This building material could transform our dock substructure into an incubator for aquatic life,” Foltz added.

GPA engineers are considering ECOncrete for possible use in producing pilings for new construction, in the repair of existing pilings or in sheathing current dock infrastructure.

Finkel and Sella, who recently returned to Savannah — as well as to port city test sites in New York and Florida — for the six-month follow-up, were equally enthusiastic.

“We were really happy to see how well they came out,” said Finkel.

Sella added that the accumulation of shells and calcium carbonate will be experienced by subsequent generations of aquatic life as a natural surface, instead of a man-made structure.

The two took small samples for lab analysis and returned the tiles to the water. A full report on results will be delivered to the GPA and other cooperating organizations.

Finkel and Sella will be back in February for a one-year sampling.

Senior business reporter Mary Carr Mayle covers the ports for the Savannah Morning News. She can be reached at 912-652-0324 or at mary.mayle@savannahnow.com.

SHIPPING SCHEDULE

These are the ships expected to call on Georgia Ports Authority’s Garden City and Ocean Terminals in the next week. Sailing schedules are provided by Georgia Ports Authority and are subject to change.